Press Cycle 15 - Conservative Alternate Budget

The difficult decisions that we made at the start of our long term economic plan have left us with the room to invest in our economy and our public now. Where we used to be content to simply protect NHS funding we are now increasing it in real terms, where we used to protect education funding we are now increasing it in real terms, and we are able to invest in other areas such as the Home Office and the Environment. Because of our long term economic plan we have the ability to cut the deficit, cut taxes, and invest in our economy and public services giving Britain its best shot going forward. Labour are the party of higher taxes for our entrepreneurs, higher deficits and debt for our children, and unsustainable spending that they just can't stop growing.

Labour cannot hold a candle to the Conservative Party record on jobs, training, and apprenticeships. The economy that we have spent four years building is seeing unemployment fall, real wages rise, on the job learning up, and apprenticeships absolutely takeoff. But we're not done there, as part of our plan to see 3 million apprenticeships created over the course of this Parliament to help the long term unemployed and our children and young people we have used our alternative budget as a vehicle to create tens of thousands more apprenticeships. The Conservative Party apprenticeship plan will give our children and young people the chance to learn somewhere other than school and university by supporting employers and apprentices going forward. Labour's paltry offering of about 10,000 apprenticeships shows that they have no idea what to do for our young people outside of short termist gimmicks designed to dislodge Liberal Democrat MPs from university constituencies.

The Conservative Party is the party of the pensioner and the retiree. In their previous budget the Government lost the plot entirely abolishing the triple lock, cutting pension benefits, and a whole host of other issues that prove that they don't put the needs of our oldest citizens first, only their votes. At the first time of asking the Conservative Party upheld the triple lock, protected all pensioner benefits, invested real terms increases into community and long term care, and protected the pension tax relief in full. It is clear that only one party is standing up for pensioners in this country outside of election periods and that party is the Conservatives.

Labour have no plan for the safety of this nation. In an attempt to cut costs they have decided to close 1000 prison cells and either simply release these prisoners onto the street or contribute to our already developing overcrowding problem. Labour are failing our prison workers and our society by letting dangerous people either flood back into our communities or by compressing them into ever more crowded cells and running the risk of prison riots. Only the Conservative Party takes our justice system seriously and only the Conservative Party is willing to stump up the money required to ensure that our prison system remains up to scratch. We are giving a real terms increase to prison maintenance and we are fully restoring jail cells that Labour would allow to close under their watch.

Labour are failing our young people. They're refusal to invest in anything but universities means that the millions of young people who would learn better on the job, as provided by an apprenticeship, means that they will condemn millions to learn in a way not best suited to their specific requirements. Their cutting of the Help to Buy scheme means that young people will find it far harder to afford their first house and get on the property ladder, condemning them to living at home for far longer than they would have under the previous government. The Conservative Party is putting young people first. We are investing in apprenticeships to give people an alternative to A-Levels and university and we are investing in home ownership to give young adults a footing on the property ladder. For all their talk of investment Labour seem to singularly uninterested in investing in young people unless they happen to live in Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, or Oxford West and Abingdon.

This budget represents the continuation of the old adage, vote blue go green. The Conservative Party's alternative budget includes real terms investments in energy efficiency schemes, the Green Investment Bank, and International Climate Credits. On top of this we have provided hundreds of millions of pounds for greater flood protections and protected all other environment spending in real terms. The message is simple, if you care about the environment then the Conservative Party are the party for you. We are creating long term and sustainable investments into our country's green future and the green economy.

Dylan Macmillan has talked about investing in 'every' area of the NHS - but even when social care and mental health has been raised, he won't defend his policies or acknowledge that he hasn't invested in these crucial areas of the Health and Social Care Budget.

This silence from the Conservatives is deafening, but for those with mental illnesses and those requiring care this silence would have a life changing cost. At most, social care and mental health is something Dylan Macmillan is keen to ignore - at worst he doesn't even know it exists.

"[we] would rather die than leave the Labour Party." - Emily Thornberry.

More prisons is not a solution to knife crime, prison's place in our criminal justice system is after the crime has been committed. Conservatives won't stop knife crime but ensures after the crime has been committed to lock the person up. This government fights knife crime with more funding into our police force, hiring 20 thousand new police officers, offering our police officers good conditions with good pay. We want to stop and deter knife crime with more police officers in our streets, Conservatives won't do anything to stop or deter knife crime, they will just act after the crime has been committed.

The Rt Hon Ariadne "Ari" Suchet MP
Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras
The Prime Minister
Leader of the Labour Party

The Health Secretary is now flat out lying to the country, I have raised mental health and social care explicitly in my defence of this budget because they have both received real terms increases in funding under the Conservative party Alternative Budget. The Conservative Party are committed to all aspects of our NHS and we will keep on delivering these changes in a sustainable manner while Labour borrow us into more and more debt until they run out of money and have to do unto England as they did unto Wales.

Labour's attitude to knife crime is the same attitude that a five year old has with catching butterflies, catch and release. Labour's plan may allow them to catch more criminals or it may not but the one thing it will most certainly do is ensure that the criminals once caught have got to be released because they are closing down our prison places. Catch and release justice is no way to keep our streets safer, only the Conservative Party can be trusted to keep the dangers to society off of our streets and safely behind bars where they belong.

Macmillan needs a wake up call - mental health and social care services are not grocery baskets. I've never discussed real terms rises or cuts because they're - largely - inconsequential in this discussion. We've seen admissions of children under 18 needing mental health support rise by almost a third in the past year. We've seen demand skyrocket for social care by 14% in the last few years, and we know this will only get more intense. That's without factoring in inflation.

The 'alternative budget's' pittance is not enough: as this crisis would grow if a government does not get to grips with the reality of the situation soon, their 'real terms' increase barely papers over the cracks.

I'm glad the Leader of the Opposition finally seems to have heard Labour's criticisms. But it's time he responds by listening and getting a grip of the scale of the crisis, not by making dramatic accusations he wouldn't be allowed to make if he were in Parliament.

"[we] would rather die than leave the Labour Party." - Emily Thornberry.

It is disingenuous of Dylan Macmillan that suggesting that reducing prison spaces will lead to releasing criminals. This government will actually reform our criminal justice system, this reform will entail reforming our drugs laws as well. Treating addiction to drugs as an illness not a crime will open so much space in our prisons. That is how we will have much more space in our prisoners for crimes with actual victims and keep our streets safe. Tories are offering more of the same, more of the same is not working for Britain and we need a bold reform into our criminal justice system, that is what our government will do and the Tory budget will actually keep our streets dangerous and Tory position on criminal justice system will overcrowd our prisons with people who have committed victimless crimes and actually lead to release of criminals who have committed crimes with actual victims.

The Rt Hon Ariadne "Ari" Suchet MP
Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras
The Prime Minister
Leader of the Labour Party

The Conservatives' have u-turned and acknowledged that the pay cap is a regressive and cruel policy that punishes our hard working public sector workers - but as nurses have lost up to £1000 in real terms, after years of hardship the Conservatives still offer absolutely nothing.

If the Conservatives can find money to cut taxes for the wealthiest, why can't they find money to ensure our nurses are rewarded for all the hard work they do?

"[we] would rather die than leave the Labour Party." - Emily Thornberry.

No, that's not a cop out, because it's nuanced. Once I got over rocking back and forth at having to read all of this, I flicked back through and think that -

Labourand Lib Dem win on the NHS and public services

Conservativewin on economic credibility

Tories - you did a good job defending your budget particularly on the big economic questions like the deficit. You made a solid job of defending the bits that Labour and the Lib Dems attacked, and highlighting some of your good record. Often you were feeding it back into your wider economic narrative - which helped you there, but meant I largely came away with the impression that "yeah, the Tories have the best economic plan, and that involves some things I don't quite like." Which isn't a bad thing, and maybe the only way to win the argument in the long term given the government can genuinely out-spend you. And given the generally positive reaction to your Budget in general, successfully defending it to a draw in the press cycle means you have overall come out on top in the "original" budget debate - so well done.

Labour / Lib Dems - you were quite co-ordinated which was a good thing, fighting along the same sorts of lines. That definitely helped you a lot versus the Reform Bill where the PM looked isolated. What you did well was to isolate a small quite clear things that were tangible and could get traction - like the prescription charge. One small comment is that it is fine to post 4 press statements but not 4 that talk about the same thing - focus, specialise. Four PRs saying the same thing have the same effect as one good PR saying it.

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